Why this role matters
You will turn Sentalica from a promising product into production-grade procurement intelligence infrastructure. The role owns the systems that connect fragmented public records, protect sensitive workflows and make intelligence dependable for suppliers, governments, banks and development partners.
What you will own
- Platform architecture
- Supabase/Postgres data model
- APIs and integration boundaries
- Security and reliability standards
- Engineering standards
- Infrastructure operations
- Technical roadmap
What you will do
Design the platform architecture
Define the backend, data, API and product architecture required for a serious procurement intelligence system.
Harden data and security foundations
Build secure access patterns, provenance-aware records, reliable storage and operational discipline around sensitive data.
Lead engineering execution
Translate product and intelligence priorities into maintainable technical systems and a clear engineering cadence.
Build the team
Set standards for code quality, documentation, reviews, hiring and technical decision-making as the company grows.
What success looks like
First 90 days
- Audit and stabilize the current architecture.
- Define the technical roadmap.
- Document security, data and release standards.
- Prioritize the highest-risk platform gaps.
- Ship improvements to reliability and developer velocity.
First 6–12 months
- Establish production-grade engineering processes.
- Scale ingestion and intelligence workflows.
- Improve platform observability and security posture.
- Help recruit the next technical hires.
- Make the product meaningfully more reliable for institutional users.
Who you will work with
- Founder
- Data engineering
- Procurement intelligence
- Product design
- Institutional partnerships
What we are looking for
Must have
- Strong backend, data or platform engineering judgment.
- Experience owning production systems.
- Ability to work across product, data and security tradeoffs.
- Clear written communication and technical documentation.
- High ownership in ambiguous environments.
Strongly preferred
- Experience with Postgres/Supabase or similar data platforms.
- Experience with data products, AI systems or knowledge graphs.
- Experience building early engineering teams.
Nice to have
- Public-sector, procurement or financial data experience.
- East Africa ecosystem familiarity.
- Startup founding-team experience.
We care about what you've built and the problems you've solved more than arbitrary years of experience.
Location / employment
Uganda / East Africa with flexible remote collaboration · Full-time · Founding role
Compensation / benefits
Compensation will be discussed based on experience, scope and location. Equity or long-term incentives may be considered for founding-level roles.
- Flexible remote collaboration.
- High ownership and direct product influence.
- Equipment support where needed.
- Professional development tied to role scope.
Application process
- Application received.
- Initial review.
- Founder conversation.
- Technical/system design discussion.
- Decision.